CHAPTER AMI. 



1 831 AND 1832. 



C'ORRESPONDENCE WITH AUDUBON — NATURAL HISTORY — A VISIT 

 FROM THE NATURALIST, AUDUBON — HIS LETTERS TO AUDU- 

 BON. 



"T^ROM my earliest boyhood," said the subject of 

 Ji this memoir, " I had aii irrepressible desire for 

 the study of Natural History. At the age of fourteen, 

 I had made an extensive collection of plants, birds 

 and quadrupeds of my native State. I was intimate 

 with Alexander Wilson, the pioneer of American 

 Ornithology, and furnished him with the rare birds 

 existing in the Northern parts of New York. In 

 Carolina, I was enabled to compare the native pro- 

 ductions of a Southern climate with those of the 

 State of my nativity.' ' 



Now he was to become i)ersonally acquainted 

 with Audubon, the Ornithologist. They had, per- 

 haps, corresponded, but did not meet until the Fall 

 of 1831. 



AVe find from the following letter, to Mrs. John J. 

 Audubon, the wife of the naturalist, that Audubon, 

 accompanied by Mr. Lehman a landscape painter 

 and Mr. Ward a taxidermist, had spent a month un- 

 der his roof. This visit was a beginning of a firm 

 friendship between two scientists, both humble 

 seekeis after truth, both close students of nature. 



Audubon's grateful and constant allusions, in his 



